2026 Catholic Schools Week Supplement
Priests find life in passing on the faith in Catholic schools across the archdiocese
Father Rick Nagel, pastor of Prince of Peace Parish in Madison, teaches fourth-grade students
at the faith community’s Pope John XXIII School how to be an altar server on Sept. 17, 2025, in
St. Patrick Chapel, which is adjacent to the school. (Submitted photo)
By Sean Gallagher
After leading St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Bloomington for nearly 15 years, Father Thomas Kovatch knows well where to go for a pick-me-up.
“If I’m having a bad day, all I have to do is walk into the school and visit the kids,” he said. “They lift me up like there’s no tomorrow. They are constantly joy-filled and excited to see me. They’re very uplifting. To go there and spend time in the school is one of my favorite things to do.”
Dozens of priests across central and southern Indiana who serve in elementary and high schools in the archdiocese could echo Father Kovatch’s sentiments.
But the benefits go both ways. The presence of priests in Catholic schools in the archdiocese enhances the formation and education of the more than 23,000 students enrolled in them.
In addition to Father Kovatch, two other priests who serve in schools in the archdiocese spoke with The Criterion about their experience of ministry in Catholic education.
As pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Richmond, Father Sengole Thomas Gnanaraj ministers in the faith community’s St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School and Seton Catholic Jr./Sr. High School.
Father Rick Nagel is pastor of Prince of Peace Parish in Madison and serves at its Pope John XXIII School and Father Michael Shawe Memorial Jr./Sr. High School.
Serving ‘the young Church’
Father Nagel began ministry at Prince of Peace Parish last July. He said that many strands in his life going back decades prepared him for leading a parish that has both an elementary school and high school.
He comes from a family of nine and has 34 nieces and nephews and 40 great-nieces and great-nephews. Before becoming an archdiocesan seminarian, he was a high school teacher for six years and then served as the state director for the Future Farmers of America.
“I’ve been around kids my whole life,” Father Nagel said. “So, it’s kind of natural for me.”
And for the last 16 years, he’s ministered to many young adult Catholics at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis and as chaplain of what is now Indiana University Indianapolis and Purdue University in Indianapolis.
“I absolutely love anything to do with faith formation and especially to do with the young Church,” Father Nagel said. “That’s a big part of my heart in the many years of my priesthood. It’s such a joy. It gives me life. It lifts me up.”
And he wants to return the favor for the students at Prince of Peace’s schools. He celebrates three school Masses each week, teaches theology classes at Shawe and visits classrooms when teachers ask him to come by, which he says happens regularly.
“Any requests that they have of me to come into the classroom to do something or an event, I’m there,” Father Nagel said. “I really try to be open and present to that.”
Last fall, Father Nagel also trained 62 students from the third through the 12th grade to be altar servers.
“It’s really beautiful,” he said. “We’ve had at least three families I know of that have come back to the Church through these kids being involved in serving.”
Father Nagel is grateful for all the life and joy he’s experienced in just one semester at Pope John XXIII and Shawe.
“I feel super blessed as a priest to be here,” he said. “God’s led me here. It’s so full of life, goodness and opportunities to help grow the faith within families within the life of the schools and broadly through the parish life.”
‘A ministry of being available’
Like other priests who lead parishes with schools, Father Kovatch makes sure to be present during the day when classes are in session at St. Charles.
He interacts a lot with students when preaching during the weekly school Mass.
“I ask them questions about the readings and various things,” Father Kovatch said. “They get excited. They’ll answer the questions. They’re really smart.”
But he knows the importance of spending time with the school community outside of regular hours, too.
“I go to their ball games,” Father Kovatch said. “There are a lot of Saturdays where I’m at the gym the whole day because there are games after games after games.”
While being the person ultimately responsible for the administration of his parish’s school, Father Kovatch sees his service as more focused on simply being present.
“It’s a ministry of being available,” he said. “A priest needs to be available to the school, to the kids and to the staff, just as I need to be available to my parishioners. It all comes out of the same mentality that your life is not your own. It’s given away.”
Giving himself to St. Charles Borromeo Parish and its school since coming to Bloomington in 2011 has allowed Father Kovatch to accompany students as they’ve grown from children to adults.
“I’ve had weddings of kids who were in the fourth grade when I came here,” he said. “I just baptized the child of one of those [couples] last weekend. And they come to Mass every weekend.”
Nurturing a ‘friendship with Christ’
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Richmond uses
all three of its campuses for its schools. Students in
pre-kindergarten through the second grade go to classes on the St. Mary campus. Third through sixth graders are at the Holy Family campus. And Seton Catholic Jr./Sr. High School is on the St. Andrew campus.
Father Gnanaraj says that keeps him “on wheels every day.”
But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I love it 100%,” he said.
Father Gnanaraj especially likes preaching during the Masses he celebrates weekly on each of the three campuses.
“I consider that my teaching time,” he said. “To the little ones, you have to talk like a 100% entertainer to get their attention. Intermediate is another style. They are just in that cusp of understanding things in a better way.”
In preaching to the high school students, Father Gnanaraj wants to stretch their hearts and minds.
The Indian priest who has served in the archdiocese since 2011 has done graduate studies on the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and wants to pass on the wisdom of this great doctor of the Church to the Seton students.
“I make sure that I kind of translate at least some of the major teachings of Aquinas into their own language,” Father Gnanaraj said. “I talk about virtues. I talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the sacraments. I spend a lot of time talking about some of those basic building blocks that they should get a good grip on.”
All of his preaching and interaction with students in classrooms, high school retreats and other settings is geared toward helping them nurture a lifelong friendship with Christ.
“My goal is to help our young people to see Jesus our Lord, to see Christ as early as possible and begin to develop a relationship with him,” Father Gnanaraj said. “That is my goal.
“If the students graduate from Seton with a pretty good understanding of what it means to have faith and what it means to have friendship with Christ, the success story begins right there.” †
